Silence
by Carebear Stare
Summary: Response to welcometotheoc's challenge. Can you hear me when I shout out your name?


Howdy partners! Well, this is my response to the challenge of my fellow writer and friend, welcometotheoc. I hopeI did your wonderful line justice!

Here's my latest challenge line for anyone who's interested.

_"Choose. You don't need to be everything. You already are."

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Your eyes are bluer than they used to be. They're not as sharp, but now they rival the sky on the sunniest of days. I wonder, do you still see me like you did when we were sixteen? Love can transform a person.

You sleep so much more than you used to. I wonder, can you still remember those nights we watched turn into days? When you'd sleep about as much as you now sit up, barely awake. The slow turning of the wheel of fate finally caught up with us.

But then again, maybe it was always there. We just couldn't hear it turning.

That smile of perfect teeth. There you are, smiling at me.

Sorry, I get side tracked. Where was I? Ah, that's right. The wheel of fate.

Sounds almost mystical, doesn't it? Well, you always were full of imagination. The books you wrote for our daughter, that later became how the world would remember you. They still remember you.

I wonder what you think I'm saying when you watch my lips. I wonder if our love has helped you. My love for you.

Could you hear our daughter if she was crying?

Our son if he called for his mother?

Can you hear the ice cream truck as it sings up and down the street?

The soft purr of the black and white cat that sits on your too thin lap?

Can you hear me when I shout out your name?

Your hair is blinding white now, and still just as beautiful. It curls more now that you're older, and surrounds your face like a swirling snow storm when you stand in the wind. I know your face better than anyone, except perhaps your best friends.

I wonder, do you remember them? Five months is a long time to be asleep, and you didn't remember me when you woke.

Even if you hadn't thrown a sleeping beauty you still might have forgotten me. Ninety-five years is a long time to be alive. The body breaks down. It's impossible to die with dignity, no matter how old you are. But we're still here, and it still ain't pretty.

You can't remember them; Seth died a year before you decided to trip over Daisy and hit your head on the corner of a pink Barbie car. Never is elegant either, is it? She's still hanging around, not Daisy, that cat died, Summer, but she's living in the suburbs of New York. I suppose you don't remember them moving there either? There you are again, giving me that frighteningly exquisite smile with a terrifyingly blank look on your face.

I know you can't hear me.

The nurses give me pitying looks, and the doctors wonder why I try. Well, for one, I don't have anything else to do. And, talking to you has always been one of my favourite things in the world. Now, sometimes, I find myself unconsciously falling back into the silent language of signs. I'll find myself telling you about the one cornflower blue eye and the one chestnut brown eye of your daughter with my hands, then see that bemused look on your face.

It's still strange for me to think you don't remember the signs. Crossed arms across the chest means love, a hand circling the face means beautiful. All four of us spoke that language for twenty years, but those were the first things we learnt.

It's even stranger to think you don't remember me. No, that's not right, its heart stoppingly petrifying, and even more so that you don't remember yourself.

We didn't have a big wedding. Only the essential people were there. If there's no one left who remembers it did it happen? When Summer's gone, and I die, there will be no one left who remembers being at our wedding. No one left to cry over how beautiful you looked, to coo over how I cried in my vows, or laugh at how the dove circled us magically then landed on Seth's head. No one left to remember.

The doctor's weren't surprised that you didn't remember everything. They couldn't seem to understand the tragedy of the situation. How important it was for you to be able to remember. They said there was nothing they could do.

So you spend day after day trapped in your empty prison of silence.

Everyday your eyes get bluer.

Mine get blurrier.

Time marches on.

Now, we have the same colour hair, like you always said we would.

But we aren't haunting our children's workplaces embarrassing them as we promised.

You can't hear me when I scream at you to remember me. When I rage for you to come back to me.

You can't hear me when I whisper I love you.

I wonder, can you hear me when I shout your name? When I scream Marissa?

Will you ever turn to me and say Ryan?


End file.
